http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_re_as/china_food_fears_5&printer=1

China's food safety woes expand overseas

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 1 minute ago

The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.

Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern.

In recent weeks, scores of cats and dogs in America have died of kidney failure blamed on eating pet food containing gluten from China that was tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants. While humans aren't believed at risk, the incident has sharpened concerns over China's food exports and the limited ability of U.S. inspectors to catch problem shipments.

"This really shows the risks of food purity problems combining with international trade," said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Center for World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit.

Just as with manufactured goods, exports of meat, produce, and processed foods from China have soared in recent years, prompting outcries from foreign farm sectors that are feeling pinched by low Chinese prices.

Worried about losing access to foreign markets and stung by tainted food products scandals at home, China has in recent years tried to improve inspections, with limited success.

The problems the government faces are legion. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields while harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the food chain.

Farmers have used cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red to boost the value of their eggs and fed an asthma medication to pigs to produce leaner meat. In a case that galvanized the public's and government's attention, shoddy infant formula with little or no nutritional value has been blamed for causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killing at least 12.

China's Health Ministry reported almost 34,000 food-related illnesses in 2005, with spoiled food accounting for the largest number, followed by poisonous plants or animals and use of agricultural chemicals.

With China increasingly intertwined in global trade, Chinese exporters are paying a price for unsafe practices. Excessive antibiotic or pesticide residues have caused bans in Europe and Japan on Chinese shrimp, honey and other products. Hong Kong blocked imports of turbot last year after inspectors found traces of malachite green, a possibly cancer-causing chemical used to treat fungal infections, in some fish.

One source of the problem is China's fractured farming sector, comprised of small landholdings which make regulation difficult, experts said.

Small farms ship to market with little documentation. Testing of the safety and purity of farm products such as milk is often haphazard, hampered by fuzzy lines of authority among regulators. Only about 6 percent of agricultural products were considered pollution-free in 2005, while safer, better quality food officially stamped as "green" accounts for just 1 percent of the total, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

For foreign importers, the answer is to know your suppliers and test thoroughly, food industry experts said.

"You just have to hope that your system is strong enough and your producers are careful enough," said Todd Meyer, China director for the U.S. Grains Council.

Health Ministry officials acknowledge problems, but have described scandals such as the 2004 baby formula deaths as isolated incidents. Neither the ministry nor the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, responsible for overall food safety standards, responded to questions submitted to them in writing as requested.

Over the past 25 years, Chinese agricultural exports to the U.S. surged nearly 20-fold to $2.26 billion last year, led by poultry products, sausage casings, shellfish, spices and apple juice.

Inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are able to inspect only a tiny percentage of the millions of shipments that enter the U.S. each year.

Even so, shipments from China were rejected at the rate of about 200 per month this year, the largest from any country, compared to about 18 for Thailand, and 35 for Italy, also big exporters to the U.S., according to data posted on the FDA's Web site.

Chinese products are bounced for containing pesticides, antibiotics and other potentially harmful chemicals, and false or incomplete labeling that sometimes omits the producer's name.

To protect its foreign markets, China is trying to set up a dedicated export supply chain, sealed off from the domestic market, said Keyzer. Systems for tracking and tracing vegetables have been set up, although doing so for meat products is harder, he said.

Large producers targeting foreign markets have also moved to gain greater control over supplies by expanding their operations instead of buying from individual farmers.

The tainted pet food scandal is likely to increase this momentum. More than 100 brands of pet foods and treats have been recalled, one of the largest pet food recalls in history. Menu Foods was the first of at least six companies to recall pet food, beginning in mid-March, after reported cases of cats and dogs developing kidney failure after eating the affected products.

How the contaminated wheat gluten got into the product cycle is not yet known. The gluten was traced to a company outside Shanghai, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co.

The company and the government's inspection and quarantine administration are investigating. But a company sales manager, Geng Xiujuan, said Xuzhou Anying was only a middleman, buying the gluten, commonly used as a thickener in pet food, from companies in neighboring provinces and selling it to a separate trading company.

While no investigation results have been announced, industry experts said they suspect the gluten might have been contaminated by having been processed or stored in machines or containers also used for melamine. Such anomalies show just how difficult it is to ensure purity, they said.

"It's just really hard to test for everything," Meyer said.

Tainted food.

Cheap knock off copies of products made elsewhere.

It's time to shut off china.  With nothing to stop them from unsafe manufacturing and in this case, food processing on their end it's time to turn them off.  That should take care of it.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/imported_food_safety&printer=1

Imported food rarely inspected

By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

Mon Apr 16, 6:36 AM ET

Just 1.3 percent of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods are inspected yet those government inspections regularly reveal food unfit for human consumption.

Frozen catfish from China, beans from Belgium, jalapenos from Peru, blackberries from Guatemala, baked goods from Canada, India and the Philippines the list of tainted food detained at the border by the Food and Drug Administration stretches on.

Add to that the contaminated Chinese wheat gluten that poisoned cats and dogs nationwide and led to a massive pet food recall, and you've got a real international pickle. Does the United States have the wherewithal to ensure the food it imports is safe?

Food safety experts say no.

With only a minuscule percentage of shipments inspected, they say the nation is vulnerable to harm from abroad, where rules and regulations governing food production are often more lax than they are at home.

"FDA doesn't have enough resources or control over this situation presently," said Mike Doyle (news, bio, voting record), director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, which works with industry to improve safety.

Last month alone, FDA detained nearly 850 shipments of grains, fish, vegetables, nuts, spice, oils and other imported foods for issues ranging from filth to unsafe food coloring to contamination with pesticides to salmonella.

And that's with just 1.3 percent of the imports inspected. As for the other 98.7 percent, it's not inspected, much less detained, and goes to feed the nation's growing appetite for imported foods.

Each year, the average American eats about 260 pounds of imported foods, including processed, ready-to-eat products and single ingredients. Imports account for about 13 percent of the annual diet.

"Never before in history have we had the sort of system that we have now, meaning a globalization of the food supply," said Robert Brackett, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

FDA inspections focus on foods known to be at risk for contamination, including fish, shellfish, fruit and vegetables. Food from countries or producers previously shown to be problematic also are flagged for a closer look.

Consider this list of Chinese products detained by the FDA just in the last month: frozen catfish tainted with illegal veterinary drugs, fresh ginger polluted with pesticides, melon seeds contaminated with a cancer-causing toxin and filthy dried dates.

But even foods expected to be safe can harbor unexpected perils. Take wheat gluten: Grains and grain byproducts like it are rarely eaten raw and generally pose few health risks, since cooking kills bacteria and other pathogens.

Even so, the FDA can't say for sure whether the ingredient used in the pet foods was inspected after it arrived from China. And if the wheat gluten was, officials said, it wouldn't have been tested for melamine. Even though the chemical isn't allowed in food for pets or people, in any quantity, it previously wasn't believed toxic.

How did the melamine wind up in the wheat gluten? Investigators still don't know. Meanwhile, China is struggling to overhaul its food system and improve safety standards, but still faces major hurdles.

Farmers use pesticides and chemical fertilizers to build produce yields and antibiotics are used on seafood and livestock. Heavy metals also can be introduced into the food chain by widespread industrial pollution.

Increasingly, those foods are sold in a now global marketplace.

While the European Union, Canada and Mexico still top the list of food exporters to the U.S., China is coming up fast. Since 1997, the value of Chinese food imports, including commodities like wheat gluten, has more than tripled, to $2.1 billion from $644 million, according to Agriculture Department statistics. It accounts for 3.3 percent of the total food the U.S. buys abroad.

For suspect imported products and wheat gluten is now one of them the FDA issues alerts to its inspectors. The FDA flags Chinese food and other imported products it regulates, like cosmetics, for that extra scrutiny more than any other country except Mexico.

To safeguard its export business, China is looking at separating foods by their ultimate destination, domestic or foreign, according to Michiel Keyzer, director of the Center for World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit.

U.S. government statistics suggest China still has a way to go.

The FDA has been stopping Chinese food import shipments at the rate of about 200 per month this year. Shippers have the right to appeal the detentions, after which the government can order products returned or destroyed.

How do you know the origin of the food you eat? The 2002 Farm Act called for fish, fruit and vegetable imports to be labeled by country of origin, though implementation for the latter two foods has been delayed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. imports more and more, though the increase in value is partially due to the weaker dollar.

All told, the U.S. is expected to import a record $70 billion in agricultural products for the 12 months ending in September, according to an Agriculture Department forecast. The value of those imports will be about double the nearly $36 billion purchased overseas in 1997.

Contributing to that growth are the fresh fruits and vegetables imported during the offseason, when domestic production dwindles or ends.

About one-quarter of our fruit, both fresh and frozen, is imported. For tree nuts, it's about half. And for fish and shellfish, more than two-thirds come from overseas.

Even as the amount of imported food increased, the percentage of FDA inspections declined from 1.8 percent in 2003 to 1.3 percent this year to an expected 1.1 percent next year.

"Inspections have a very important role but they're not the solution. They are the verification," FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach said.

The FDA and the USDA have adopted a "risk-based" inspection philosophy, focusing on specific foods, sources or producers that they believe represent the largest potential risk to the public's health.

"The public at large is not at any increased risk," said Craig Henry, senior vice president and chief operating officer for scientific and regulatory affairs of the Grocery Manufacturers-Food Products Association, an industry group.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, countered that "risk-based" is just shorthand for "reduced resources."

"Whenever they say 'risk-based approach,' it often means they don't have enough staff to actually do the job. They're doing triage. They're trying to hit what's most important to inspect but they're missing a lot," DeWaal said.

Groups lobbying to increase the FDA's budget say its spending on food safety has languished, despite the agency's outsized role in ensuring the safety of the nation's food supply.

A recent Government Accountability Office report noted that most of the $1.7 billion the federal government allocates to food safety goes to the USDA, which is responsible for regulating about 20 percent of the food supply. The FDA, responsible for most of the other 80 percent, gets about 24 percent of the total spent on food safety.

Unlike the FDA, the USDA requires foreign inspection certificates to accompany all products it regulates, which include meat and poultry. Those imports are then reinspected at each port of entry before they are allowed into this country something that doesn't happen to all FDA-regulated imports.

Under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, anyone importing food into the United States is required to notify the FDA of the shipment before it arrives by land, air or sea. That allows the FDA to intercept contaminated products before they reach the marketplace, though agency officials acknowledge it doesn't always work that way.

"We have better control than we did a few years ago but it is largely the responsibility of the importer to make sure those products are safe," said Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's top veterinarian.

ChemNutra Inc., the Las Vegas importer of the tainted wheat gluten, said it was "particularly troubled" that its supplier did not disclose it contained melamine.

Doyle, of the University of Georgia, warned the contaminated pet food could be an unsavory taste of what's to come.

"This is not the first and will not be the last but it certainly is a wakeup call for the public to get a better appreciation for where this country is going with imports and imported foods," Doyle said.

On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov/

Agriculture Department: http://www.usda.gov/

http://news.yahoo.co...trade&printer=1

US to detain seafood imports from China Thu Jun 28, 7:07 PM ET

The United States added farm-raised fish and shrimp to a growing list of Chinese products deemed unsafe for US consumers, regulators said Thursday.

The US Food and Drug Administration said it would block the import of farmed Chinese seafood until importers could prove the shipments were free of unsafe contaminants.

The move comes just days after lawmakers urged a recall of up to 450,000 Chinese tires because of safety defects and weeks after thousands of cats and dogs died because of tainted Chinese pet food.

Dangerous toys, fake drugs, toxin-coated cosmetics, illicit pesticide-laden mushrooms, errant fireworks, tainted toothpaste and other Chinese products have led to recalls and bans and potentially more stringent import and food safety laws.

"I think we have reached a point unfortunately where 'made in China' is now a warning label in the United States," Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, a top campaigner in the US Congress for tighter food safety laws, said recently.

The actions come amid growing protests over the massive US trade deficit with China, which stood at 19.3 billion dollars in April and 232.5 billion in 2006.

Thursday's broad import control was imposed after regulators repeatedly found seafood shipments contaminated with antimicrobial agents that are not approved for use in the United States, the FDA said.

It affects all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace (related to carp), and eel from China.

There have been no reports of illnesses to date and exporters will be able to seek exemptions if they prove they have protected their fish from contamination, the FDA said.

"We're taking this strong step because of current and continuing evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture products imported into the United States contain illegal substances that are not permitted in seafood sold in the United States," David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, said in a statement.

"We will accept entries of these products from Chinese firms that demonstrate compliance with our requirements and safety standards."

The levels of the drug residues found in the seafood are very low, most often at or near the minimum level of detection, the FDA said.

It has not issued a recall of fish already admitted into the country but said it was "concerned about long term exposure as well as the possible development of antibiotic resistance."

One of the banned agents, fluoroquinolones, is approved for use in China. The FDA said its use "may increase antibiotic resistance to this critically important class of antibiotics." stupid, since they dump the stuff into chicken feed in the U.S. too. I've read that Tyson is the worst offender for using antibiotics to keep their chickens from dying in droves.

Two other contaminants, the antimicrobials nitrofuran and malachite green, have been shown to be carcinogenic with long-term exposure in lab animals and also banned in China.

China is the largest producer of seafood from aquaculture in the world, accounting for 70 percent of the total production and 55 percent of the total value of farmed seafood exported around the world.

China is currently the third largest exporter of seafood to the United States, which imports about 80 percent of its seafood.

They are out to get us.

Global trade is vital.

It keeps the worlds economy in relative balance and helps promote world peace.

That being said, there is MUCH that is need to be done to improve the situation.

Child labor, unsanitary conditions, national subsidies, no international standards regarding harvesting, packaging, and transporting perishable goods.

the list is endless.

But I truly believe that if the world is to survive. We have to join together through trade and cultural exchanges.  Al queda is anti western, not just pro Islamic.  They hate technological progress and anything that infringes on the power of the mullahs to control the people.

the nations of the world with an interest in advancing the human condition from whichever political perspective need to move closer if global terrorism is ever going to be contained.

Isolating any country is always a mistake.  So long as the bullets and missles aren't yet flying, engaging your enemies in dialogue is the only alternative to war, and the brutal suffering it brings.

Global trade is vital.

It keeps the worlds economy in relative balance and helps promote world peace.

That being said, there is MUCH that is need to be done to improve the situation.

Child labor, unsanitary conditions, national subsidies, no international standards regarding harvesting, packaging, and transporting perishable goods.

the list is endless.

But I truly believe that if the world is to survive. We have to join together through trade and cultural exchanges.  Al queda is anti western, not just pro Islamic.  They hate technological progress and anything that infringes on the power of the mullahs to control the people.

the nations of the world with an interest in advancing the human condition from whichever political perspective need to move closer if global terrorism is ever going to be contained.

Isolating any country is always a mistake.  So long as the bullets and missles aren't yet flying, engaging your enemies in dialogue is the only alternative to war, and the brutal suffering it brings.

Hey Avid...I thought you were communist ;D